Sustainabilitylive! - May 19 to 21, 2009

Sustainabilitylive! taking place at the NEC, Birmingham from 19 – 21 May 2009, is the UK’s largest forum for excellence and innovation in environment, water, energy and land.

Love London Green Festival – 4th to 28th June

The Love London Green Festival is believed to be the largest annual green festival in the world. From 4th to 28th June 2009, over a hundred green events will take place across the capital, bringing communities together to share ideas and celebrate innovations.  These events provide fun days out and engage Londoners in building a sustainable future for our city.

World Environment Day - 05 Jun 2009

World Environment Day, commemorated each year on 5 June, is one of the principal vehicles through which the United Nations stimulates worldwide awareness of the environment and enhances political attention and action.

GreenFest 14th June

GREENFEST 2009 will be both a lovely way to spend an afternoon beside the river, and a chance to discover some stuff about the environment, cycling and the local community.

National Shed Week  - 06 to 11 Jul 2009

“Do you have a garden shed that is unique?” asks Uncle Wilco head sheddie of readersheds.co.uk. “Maybe it’s your own little bolthole away from the trials of life. Maybe you have converted your humble garden building into a pub, or it’s just a normal wooden building that’s special to you.”

World Recycling Day - 08 July

On July 8, 2009 keep track of your recycling and enter the number of aluminum cans, plastic bottles, glass containers, newspapers and office papers you’ve recycled into the recycling calculator at recyclingday.org or at http://apps.facebook.com/gorecycle/ and see how many barrels of oil, trees, gallons of water, pounds of carbon dioxide, kilowatts of electricity, and cubic yards of garbage you save!!

Big Green Gathering - 29th July to 2nd August 2009

What is it? The Big Green Gathering is a 5 day camping event which is currently located in the Mendip Hills in Somerset. It has grown out of the original Green Gatherings of the 1980’s and the Green Fields of Glastonbury Music Festival. It has developed organically in response to a desire from people within the green movement for a festival that was focused on Green issues

National Allotments Week - 10 to 16 Aug 2009
A week to promote awareness and availability of allotments both locally and nationally as well as showing the public and the local authorities the strength of support and interest for the heritage of allotment culture.

World Water Week - 16 to 22 Aug 2009
Experts from 100 countries are assembled this week in a global effort to improve human; welfare and the planet’s health.

International Day for the Preservation of the Ozone Layer - 16 Sep 2009
International Day for the Preservation of the Ozone Layer – reflects the urgent need to preserve the ozone layer, which filters sunlight and prevents the adverse effects of ultraviolet radiation reaching the Earth’s surface, thereby preserving life on the planet.

World Carfree Day - 22 Sep 2009
World Carfree Day is an annual celebration of cities and public life, free from the noise, stress and pollution of cars

In part two of our green wash feature, (part 1) we put the energy and oil companies under the microscope and ask if they are really doing their bit for the environment or pulling green wool over our eyes. Not every company that claims to be green is lying with many businesses spending millions reworking practices to become more environmentally friendly.

This can be demonstrated by Inc.com’s Green 50 which charts what businesses are doing to become more environmentally friendly. However with all these efforts there are many more big companies getting their big green paintbrush out.

Take energy giant Shell for instance. They bought out their big guns to shout about their commitment to a low carbon future but started selling off their Solar business as it wasn’t making ‘much profit’ and putting more money into oil sands. Oxfam criticised Shell in 2008 for massaging its emissions figures of oil sands as a “dangerous green wash” that hides its contribution to further climate change and puts poor people around the world at greater risk

In early 2009, Energy regulator Ofgem sparked controversy by making the decision that power companies wishing to offer green tariffs would be required to make additional efforts to reduce carbon emissions. This means that that currently suppliers offering green tariffs need to demonstrate that they are making additional investment in renewable energy or carbon offsets, on top of their legal obligations. The top six energy companies signed up to this. However this decision was slated by Dale Vince, MD of Ecotricity who accused the six of greenwash and said that this action would divert investment from increasing renewable energy capacity.

So what do consumers think? We know we are getting wiser about greenwashing and the web is helping us spread our distain for it. Consumers are quick to use the web to condemn green washing and voice their skepticism about corporations, researchers from Nielsen Online found during a recent survey.  “When it comes to the environment, consumers are insisting on both transparency and consistency from the corporations they patronise,” said Jessica Hogue, research director for Nielsen Online.

Most people think there are only two seats in a performance – on the stage or in the audience.

But there is something inbetween – you can sit at the front and look back. You see it all from there

Recently Barbie has been accused of it, Shell and BP deny claims that they do it but it seems like all and sundry are jumping on the green bandwagon to sell their products.

“Green washing,” is the combination of the words green and whitewashing. This term was created by environmentalist Jay Westerveld who coined the phrase when examining the ‘so called’ environmental towel policy at hotels around the world. Today, it is becoming ingrained into modern language as global warming remains top of the planet’s agenda. The term describes efforts, mostly in business, to create the impression that a company is implementing practices meant to improve the environment when it is not really doing so.

The Team at MoreEco
are constantly being sent products to review from green companies so we
always do a green wash check to see if a product can live up to it’s so
called environmental credentials:

• How many air miles has it done?
• Where, how and what has it been made of?
• Is
  it packaged in an environmentally friendly way?  (I can’t name all the
  times when we have been sent items in bubble wrap or copious amounts of
  unnecessary packaging!)

Back in December 2007, environmental marketing firm TerraChoice released a study called “The Six Sins of Green washing”
which found that more than 99% of 1,018 common consumer products
randomly surveyed were guilty of green washing. Out of a total of 1,753
environmental claims made, with some products having more than one,
only one was found not guilty of making a false or misleading green
marketing claim.

A good example of a company doing it right
is Ribena, with all their bottles made from recycled plastic and the
juice itself being produced under ethical conditions in the UK.
Marketing Manager for Ribena, Rachel Harris states, “We are committed
to making the supply chain for Ribena as environmentally friendly as
possible, from the way we grow our blackcurrants to the packaging in
which the products are wrapped.” Ribena’s cap- and label are not
recyclable but they are honest about this and state this is something
they are looking at.

Here at MoreEco
we feel that packaging for products should contain recycling
information so people can make informed choices when it comes to
purchasing. Check out this great example of clear and concise recycling
information on this OWL wireless electricity monitor.

In part two of this article, we question whether some energy services are as green as they state they are!